MS Employee Busted For Hacking Into Altavista

I guess the stakes for Search are higher than I thought:

Man arrested in hacking case is Microsoft employee

July 9, 2004

SEATTLE - A newspaper reports that a man charged with hacking into an Internet search company in California works on search engine development for Microsoft.
Microsoft officials confirmed yesterday that Laurent Chavet works for the company, but they would not specify his assignment.

He was arrested last week after being indicted in San Francisco on federal charges of unauthorized access and reckless damage to a protected computer.

The charges stem from 2002, when Chavet left the search company AltaVista to work for IBM.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports today that three sources with knowledge of his work at Microsoft have confirmed that he now is on the MSN Search team.

Assistant U.S. attorney Christopher Sonderby says none of the accusations in the indictment against Chavet pertain to Microsoft.

In addition, FBI agent Greg in Seattle says no computers have been seized from Microsoft in the case.

Microsoft officials will not discuss the case, citing company personnel policies.

Source: http://www.katu.com/printstory.asp?ID=69082

Microsoft's Upcoming Windows XP Pro Service Pack 2

I tried to install the SP2 a couple of times and it kept on freaking out - it wasn't until I disabled Norton Internet Security (2003) that I was able to get the new 100 MB service pack installed in my PC.

It is still in Beta - so expect minor problems - but if you are an early adopter like me...

Highlights of SP2 include:

• Highly visible and "idiot proof" security monitor - automatically activates the Windows Firewall.


• Built-In Pop Up Blocker


• Security warnings on "suspicious" downloads - JS activated downloads and executables among other files.


• Security Warnings on the execution unsigned executables.


• The addition of a link to the "Windows Marketplace" on the IE links bar.


• Assorted minor bugs - my machine has locked up twice since this version was installed.

The Windows Firewall is a little weird to use - especially for a novice. It blocks everything. I found Norton's approach much easier to handle: "Hey a program named X is trying to access the internet". Windows just blocks everything -- not even a "hey I blocked something" message. I tried to use my FTP program and I thought my internet connection was down.

Kudos to the MS engineers - You can tell that they've been working late to fix the problems that have left them with egg on their face. It is a huge step in the right direction - but will it stem the tide? Time will tell.

Get it here: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/sp2preview.mspx

Marketshare Woes For Microsoft

Being the biggest isn't necessarily best. Microsoft's mega-market share has made it target to thousands of viruses, security exploits and other hacker chicanery.

You know that Bill cried himself to sleep the day that US CERT released this statement:

"There are a number of significant vulnerabilities in technologies relating to the IE domain/zone security model, the DHTML object model, MIME type determination, and ActiveX. It is possible to reduce exposure to these vulnerabilities by using a different web browser, especially when browsing untrusted sites."

CERT otherwise recommends users to set security settings to high and disable JavaScript.

I suspect my mom would probably say something like "you mean there are other web page thingies other than the internet?"

Which would be her way of asking if there were other web browsers other than Internet Explorer.

Yes, Virgina, there are other web browsers.

Mozilla is a free web browser developed by a volunteer army of programmers. It's not Internet Explorer - it's actually different, and may take a little getting used to.

If you like to visit sites with Flash animation - this browser can't see Flash... yet. However, a recent (June 30th) announcement states that Macromedia, Adobe and others have embraced and open API project which will lead to the developement of a Mozilla flash plug in.

"Hey, I work in search engine optimization" - ;) - "how am I supposed to know my Google PageRank?

Don't worry - just go over to PRgooglebar.org and get the toolbar that will let Mozilla and Firefox browser show you PageRank.