Microsoft accused of helping virus writers

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/security/354319/microsoft-accused-of-helping-virus-writers

Brief: Plurk: Microsoft went to great lengths to steal code

URL: http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/index/~3/z8LOt9keH9k/plurk-microsoft-went-to-great-lengths-to-steal-code.ars

Plurk has issued an official response to Redmond's apology for stealing Plurk's code for use in the microblogging service Juku. The startup isn't ruling out taking the software giant to court. "We are still thinking of pursuing the full extent of our legal options available due the seriousness of the situation. Basically, Microsoft accepts responsibility, but they don't offer accountability."

Earlier this week, Plurk accused Microsoft of stealing about 80 percent of its code to create the microblog Juku for MSN China. Redmond responded by pulling the site down and starting an investigation. So far, Microsoft has "acknowledged that a portion of the code they provided was indeed copied," though it blamed a vendor for doing the stealing, which was "in clear violation of the vendor's contract with the MSN China joint venture, and equally inconsistent with Microsoft's policies respecting intellectual property."

Plurk further explained that it has only been around for two years, still doesn't have a marketing department or a sales department, and that all capital is put toward development. The startup even offers open source code for some parts of its efforts. After trying to win over the reader by showing how small, but hard-working the company is, Plurk gets serious again. Apparently, Microsoft went to great lengths to the steal the code, according to Plurk: "This event wasn't just a simple matter of merely lifting code; due to the nature of the uniqueness of our product and user interface, it took a good amount of deliberate studying and digging through our codes with the full intention of replicating our product user experience, functionality, and end results."

Microsoft then had the advantage of its huge marketing budget for promoting its "innovative product" while Plurk stood by the wayside. At least Microsoft's huge mistake is giving Plurk a ton of free publicity.

What is a "Brief" post?"

Germany pays to clean malware from Windows PCs

URL: http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/index/~3/nyjpfamNb7I/microsoft-welcomes-germany-ridding-citizen-pcs-of-malware.ars

The German government is planning to establish a malware cleanup helpline for its citizens. Announced last week at the fourth German IT summit in Stuttgart, the project is due to start in 2010. Internet Service Providers (ISPs) will team up with the German Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) as well as eco (Association of the German Internet Industry) to clean consumer systems from botnet infestation. ISPs will track down infected machines by looking for communication with botnet controllers, and then direct users towards a website offering advice on how to remove it. If suggestions on the website don't get the job done (or the site is blocked by the malware), users will be directed to a call center. No funding details were provided (the exact sum contributed by the German government is not being disclosed), though about 40 employees will be taking phone calls and trying to fix problems.

31% of Windows 7 issues are related to OS installation

URL: http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/index/~3/-us_d_hfqn4/most-windows-7-issues-are-upgrade-woes.ars

Thirty-one percent of users that have been experiencing trouble with Windows 7 have reported problems with upgrading to the operating system. The data comes from consumer helpdesk firm iYogi, which recently conducted a survey of more than 100,000 of its customers. The number means that the majority of problems iYogi's customers are experiencing have to do with Windows 7 installation, or the related application and data migration. These are fixable issues, but they don't paint a good first impression of the operating system. While Microsoft clearly still has work to do in the upgrade process department (though as noted in September 2009, it is faster than Vista's), this number is not as bad as it may first appear.

First commercial tool to crack BitLocker arrives (Updated)

URL: http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/index/~3/tguTjPzmYl0/first-commercial-tool-cracks-bitlocker.ars

Passware, a software firm that provides password recovery, decryption, and evidence discovery software for computer forensics, has updated its flagship application this week to support breaking Microsoft's BitLocker hard drive encryption. Passware Kit Forensic version 9.5 can recover encryption keys for hard drives protected with BitLocker in just a few minutes. It scans a physical memory image file of the target computer and extracts all the encryption keys for a given BitLocker disk. As a result, Passware has crowned itself the creator of the first commercially available software to crack BitLocker Drive Encryption.

Microsoft Investigates Windows 7 "Black Screen of Death"

URL: http://rss.slashdot.org/~r/Slashdot/slashdot/~3/qB6pthpor5I/Microsoft-Investigates-Windows-7-Black-Screen-of-Death

duguk writes "Microsoft has confirmed that it is investigating a problem described as the 'black screen of death,' which affects Windows 7 — and reports suggest it affects Vista and XP, too. The firm said it was looking into reports that suggest its latest security update, released on Tuesday 25 November, caused the problem. The error means that users of Windows 7 and earlier operating systems see a totally black screen after logging on to the system." Update: 12/01 22:35 GMT by KD : Microsoft now says that its November Windows updates are not causing the BlackSOD: "The company has found those reports to be inaccurate and our comprehensive investigation has shown that none of the recently released updates are related to the behavior described in the reports."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Atualização de segurança do Windows pode ter causado bug no sistema, afirma Microsoft - Autor(Bruno Roberti)

URL: http://uoltecnologia.blog.uol.com.br/arch2009-11-29_2009-12-05.html#2009_12-01_13_29_59-100450639-26

A Microsoft afirmou em comunicado que está analisando problemas relatados por usuários, que, ao fazer logon no Windows 7, se depararam com uma tela preta.

Segundo informações Leia mais...

Microsoft Sued for Banning Third-Party Xbox Memory Cards

URL: http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/multimedia/display/20091124122751_Microsoft_Sued_for_Banning_Third_Party_Xbox_Memory_Cards.html

Memory Cards Supplier Sues Microsoft

Pesquisador de segurança aponta falha em arquivos PDF gerados pelo Internet Explorer - Autor(Bruno Roberti)

URL: http://uoltecnologia.blog.uol.com.br/arch2009-11-22_2009-11-28.html#2009_11-24_16_59_02-100450639-26

Uma falha no navegador Internet Explorer, da Microsoft, pode expor mais de 50 milhões de arquivos online com informações confidenciais de usuários.

Segundo Leia mais...

IE6 and IE7 vulnerable to latest flaw; IE8 immune

URL: http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/index/~3/tFARTMEec7s/ie6-and-ie7-vulnerable-to-latest-flaw-ie8-immune.ars

Microsoft has issued Security Advisory 977981 in regard to public reports of a vulnerability that exists as an invalid pointer reference of Internet Explorer. Under certain conditions, it is possible for a CSS/Style object to be accessed after the object is deleted, and thus, if Internet Explorer attempts to access the supposedly freed object, it can end up running attacker-supplied code. IE6 SP1 on Windows 2000 SP4, as well as IE6 and IE7 on supported editions of Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Windows Vista, and Windows Server 2008 are affected. Microsoft notes that IE 5.01 SP4 and IE8 on all supported versions of Windows are not affected, but of course IE6 and IE7 still account for over 40 percent of the browser market.

Lack of cross-platform support in Silverlight 4 explained

URL: http://feeds.arstechnica.com/~r/arstechnica/index/~3/AyiVV8jjAvY/lack-of-cross-platform-support-in-silverlight-4-explained.ars

As with any new release, in Silverlight 4, Microsoft has made some changes that developers like and others do not. There are too many to list of the former, and just a handful of the latter, but one of them is quite serious: cross-platform support has become less of a priority, as The Register reports. For example, the HTML control in Silverlight 4 uses components from Internet Explorer on Windows and from Safari on the Mac. How bad can that be? Well, considering the same content is likely to render differently between the two browsers, this slightly defeats the purpose of using Silverlight to write one application that works on both platforms. That's the lesser evil, though.