Skype for Pocket PC
Skype for Pocket PC is free and simple software that enables you to make free calls anywhere in the world with your handheld. Created by the people who brought you KaZaA, Skype uses innovative P2P (peer-to-peer) technology to connect you with other users. It is quick and easy to install and offers several features, including SkypeOut calling from Skype to regular and mobile phones worldwide, free conference calling, and secure file transfer. Skype calls have better sound quality than your regular phone and are highly secure with end-to-end encryption.

Publisher:	Skype
Date added:	September 16, 2004
License:	Free
Minimum requirements:	400 MHz XScale processor,WiFi-enabled
Uninstaller included?:	No

http://downloads-zdnet.com.com/Remote-PC-Access/3000-7240-10319519.html?tag=list

Zombie armies behind cyberscrime sprees | Tech News on ZDNet

Zombie armies behind cyberscrime sprees Tech News on ZDNet:
"Security experts are beginning to see a pattern in cybercrimes.

According to communications firm Energis, online crime appears to be occurring in cyclical patterns related to the creation of botnets--zombie armies of PCs that have been taken control of without the owners' knowledge.
'When you see the creation of zombie networks, you can almost see the life cycle of a spam and virus attack,' said Malcom Seagrave, head of security strategy for Energis. 'It's the same with DDoS [denial-of-service] attacks and those who steal data.'
'It's almost predictable. We can't prove it, but we think they are related. They are well-organized and they are beating the security industry.'
Seagrave said combined threats, such as keystroke-logging Trojans embedded in spam, were causing serious damage to company networks.
'Some of their methods, we just can't work out,' he said. 'But the most important way to stop this is user education.' "

Botnets are readily available for hire on the Internet. According to anti-spam campaigner Steve Linford of Spamhaus, botnets are first set up for spammers to hire and then sold on--often for DDoS attacks--when they have been blocked by anti-spam firms.

Seagrave said he thought that online retailers needed to beef up their security in time for Christmas: "You'll almost certainly see a DDoS attack coming before Christmas. Retailers will have to be wary as you can expect a growth in attacks this year."

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5392694.html?tag=adnews

MSN Ends Hotmail's Free Outlook Access

MSN Ends Hotmail's Free Outlook Access:
"Citing a rise in spam abuse, Microsoft Corp.'s MSN division has ended free access to its Hotmail Web-based e-mail service through the Outlook and Outlook Express clients.

MSN had offered its 187 million active Hotmail users the ability to read and send e-mail through the e-mail clients rather than a Web interface using a protocol called Web-based Distributed Authoring and Versioning, or WebDAV."

But as of Monday, news users wanting to make use of WebDAV will have to pay for the service, said Brooke Richardson, product manager for MSN's communications services. MSN plans to transition current WebDAV users to subscription plans in the next few months as well.

"We really wanted to try and keep it available to customers for free," Richardson said. "[But] in the last few months we were seeing spammers going more and more after this particular protocol."

WebDAV-based spam abuse has risen following anti-spam measures over the past year, such as enforcing a 100-message daily cap and requiring the solving of proofs to open accounts, Richardson said. The latest move targets spammers who are writing automated scripts for WebDAV to send the daily maximum amount of e-mails from multiple Hotmail accounts.

Hotmail users now will have to sign up for one of two MSN Hotmail subscriptions to gain Outlook access—either MSN Hotmail Plus for $19.95 a year or MSN Premium for $99.95 a year, Richardson said.

WebDAV is a set of HTTP extensions that allows for the reading and writing of documents through the Web. MSN Hotmail was one the few Web-based e-mail services to offer free downloading of e-mail to clients, and between 5 percent and 7 percent of users signed up for it, Richardson said.

Most other services, such as Yahoo Inc.'s Mail, include it in premium offerings and use POP3 (Post Office Protocol 3).…

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1652391,00.asp

New Bagle Variant Raises Alarms

New Bagle Variant Raises Alarms:
"The new version is known by a variety of names: McAfee Inc. calls it Bagle.az, Trend Micro Inc. has dubbed it Bagle.AM and Symantec Corp. refers to it as Beagle.AR. All three companies have elevated the threat level for this worm because of increased submissions to their monitoring services compared with the average Bagle variant."

All the major companies offer protection against the worm. Symantec also has a removal tool http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.beagle@mm.removal.tool.html.

Many e-mail programs, including Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express will, in the default configuration, delete the infected executable attachment to the e-mail message in which the worm arrives.

According to Trend Micro's description http://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/virusencyclo/default5.asp?VName=WORM_BAGLE.AM, the message comes from a spoofed address. The subject line is either "Re: Hi!," "Re: Thank you!," or "Re: Thanks :)," and the message body is always ":))." The message comes with an attachment with a file name of "Joke" or "Price," which has an extension of either ".com," ".cpl," ".exe," or ".scr."

Once the user runs the executable, it drops a copy of itself in the user's Windows System folder and sets Windows to load it when the computer boots up.

The worm attempts to propagate by copying itself to shared folders for LANs and peer-to-peer networks, and through a conventional e-mail distribution using a built-in SMTP engine. It attempts to terminate a large number of security-related programs, such as anti-virus software.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1662430,00.asp

Security Watch Letter: Inside the JPEG Virus

Security Watch Letter: Inside the JPEG Virus:
"The end of summer lull for viruses and worms continues. We're still seeing new versions of RBots, and a new Bagle, but nothing with teeth. The big news appears to be the anticipation of a viral exploit of the JPEG vulnerability that Microsoft patched earlier this month. Within days of the release of the security bulletin, there was proof of concept code available on the web. As the exploit was analyzed by various security groups, it was found that it was similar to a four year old Netscape vulnerability reported by Openwall project.

Shortly after the initial proof of concept code was posted, some C language code was posted that would create a JPG file that starts a command prompt shell in Windows and opens a port. A hacking tool also became available that would allow anyone to create exploitable JPG files. On Monday, Easynews, a newsgroup service company reported getting the first JPG exploit virus."

Top Threat: JPEGS of Death

Executive Summary

Name: Windows GDI+ JPEG parsing vulnerability
Affects: Unpatched Windows 9x/Me/2000/XP systems, and other Microsoft Software.

What it does: Currently there is no real viral threat. A malicious JPG was reportedly found in porno newsgroups that downloads and executes a Trojan which opens a port on the victim's system if a specific JPEG file is viewed on a non-patched system. It also may crash Explorer on some systems.

How to prevent it: Apply either Windows XP SP2 update, or the MS04-028 update. Avoid downloading JPEGS from newsgroups. Update your antivirus (most if not all vendors are detecting the exploit).

Details

While no worm currently exists that uses the JPEG vulnerability, security experts are saying it is only a matter of time. For worm authors, the vulnerability may be the holy grail of infection vectors, as it can be passed through e-mail, web sites, IM, or downloaded programs. Additionally, many, many kinds of applications (and OS versions) can view JPEGS, offering innumerable paths for the malicious files. A worm with this kind of infection power could make Blaster's epidemic pale in comparison.

The first truly malicious version of the JPEG exploit showed up as a pornographic image on a newsgroup. Usenet newsgroup service Easynews.com posted an alert claiming they had found several JPEG images that, when viewed, will download a Trojan via an external FTP site. The images were found in porn newsgroups under the user name "Power-Post 2000". The alert claims that the Trojan is downloaded and executed. Currently the code does not propagate, only infecting the one machine the JPEG is viewed on. However, the Trojan could allow the victim's machine to be controlled remotely, possibly for propagation or other purposes.

Sample C source code dubbed "JPEG of death", published on K-Otik and Easynews, can be compiled to create JPEG files that create a shell (execution environment) and open and bind ports to the shell on the victim's system. Comments in the code indicate that the JPEG can also be named .BMP or .TIF and Windows will still execute the code. The comments also hint that a more dangerous worm may not be far behind.

As if the posting of C language source code isn't bad enough, iDefense reports that a utility is available to make it easier for anyone to create the files. The utility lets a hacker wannabe specify a web site, and file which is built into a specially crafted JPEG file. If the JPEG is viewed on an unpatched system, it will download and execute the file.

The vulnerability itself is a buffer overflow flaw in the JPEG parsing engine contained in the GDIPlus.DLL file. The file is used by the operating system, as well as many applications [[link to application list]]. It can be exploited by a specially crafted JPEG image. The JPEG specification allows the embedding of comments in the JPEG file. The comment sections start with a hex value of 0xFFFE to signal the start of the comment, followed by a two byte value. The value specifies the length of the comment, plus 2 bytes (for the field itself). The two byte field theoretically allows 65,533 bytes of comment data (invisible when the JPEG is viewed). If the comment field is empty, the length value must contain the minimum length, or a value of 2. (2 bytes in length). However, if a specially crafted JPEG file sets this length to a 0 or 1 (illegal values), it causes a buffer overflow condition, which overwrites memory structures in the DLL.…

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/bulletin/ms04-028.mspx

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/maintain/winxpsp2.mspx

http://www.pcmag.com/print_article/0,1761,a=136159,00.asp

Building Websites with the ASP.NET Community Starter Kit - WebReference.com-

Building Websites with the ASP.NET Community Starter Kit - WebReference.com-:
"In this chapter from Building Websites with the ASP.NET Community Starter Kit, we illustrate how easy it is to create a a complete and functional community website from scratch with a personalized look and feel."

http://www.webreference.com/programming/asp-net-com/

Web Development Bookmarklets

Web Development Bookmarklets:
"These bookmarklets let you see how a web page is coded without digging through the source, debug problems in web pages quickly, and experiment with CSS or JS without editing the actual page."

http://www.squarefree.com/bookmarklets/webdevel.html

Choose Your Camera

Choose Your Camera:
"Like PCs, cell phones, and cars, digital cameras come in many sizes, shapes, and configurations. And your buying decision is likewise one you'll have to live with for a while. So break the decision down into a series of factors, then compare cameras based on how well they meet your needs, factor by factor. To determine which camera is best for you, consider image quality, performance, ergonomics, and style, your level (current or hoped for) of photographic skills, and price."

http://www.pcmag.com/print_article/0,1761,a=135159,00.asp

http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1648802,00.asp

Internet Task Force Shuts Down MARID Anti-Spam Working Group

Internet Task Force Shuts Down MARID Anti-Spam Working Group:
"Citing a lack of agreement on basic issues in the discussions of the working group, the IETF (Internet Engineering Task Force) has disbanded the MARID (MTA Authorization Records In DNS) working group. The group had been working to create a standard for mail authentication for the fight against spam, mail worms and other e-mail abuse.

The group's short history has been fraught with controversy. The most recent crisis was over intellectual property claims by Microsoft over technologies in some of standards under consideration, and the Microsoft license to those claims. Open source advocates and many others rejected the terms as burdensome and incompatible with their own licensing practices. "

But there has been more disagreement than consensus in the group in other areas as well. Advocates for similar methods of authentication have continued to argue strenuously for their favorite approaches, many of which may be covered under the claims of Microsoft in their patent applications.

There have been other problems. Recently it was noted that the name "Sender ID," which had been used by the standards documents for many of the proposals, has a trademark claim by a company that does related work.

In an e-mail to the working group, the co-Area Director Ted Hardie said that effort to formulate a single standard was hampered by a lack of real-world experience with the proposals. The directors recommended that the work of the various proponents move forward to Experimental RFC status, and that actual tests of the proposals proceed. They hope this experience will clarify some of the debates in the group.…

Questions may also be raised over potential actions by the US government. In June the FTC rejected calls to create a Do-Not-Spam registry and noted that it couldn't work without a system of authentication. The FTC report actually contemplates mandating a system of authentication if the industry doesn't agree on one after a period of time.

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1649763,00.asp?kc=ewnws092304dtx1k0000599

Code to exploit Windows graphics flaw now public | Tech News on ZDNet

Code to exploit Windows graphics flaw now public | Tech News on ZDNet:
"A sample program hit the Internet on Wednesday, showing by example how malicious coders could compromise Windows computers by using a flaw in the handling of a widespread graphics format by Microsoft's software.

Security professionals expect the release of the program to herald a new round of attacks by viruses and Trojan horses incorporating the code to circumvent security on Windows computers that have not been updated. The flaw, in the way Microsoft's software processes JPEG graphics, could allow a program to take control of a victim's computer when the user opens a JPEG file.

'Within days, you'll likely see (attacks) using this code as a basis,' said Vincent Weafer, senior director of security response for antivirus-software company Symantec. 'This is dangerous in a sense that everyone processes JPEG files to some degree.' "

The program is the latest example of "exploit code," a sample that shows others how to create attack programs that can take advantage of a particular flaw. Such code preceded the Sasser worm by two days and the MSBlast worm by nine days.

The critical flaw the program exploits has to do with how Microsoft's operating systems and other software process the widely used JPEG image format. Because the software giant's Internet Explorer browser is vulnerable, Windows users could fall prey to an attack just by visiting a Web site that has JPEG images.

The flaw affects various versions of at least a dozen Microsoft software applications and operating systems, including Windows XP, Windows Server 2003, Office XP, Office 2003, Internet Explorer 6 Service Pack 1, Project, Visio, Picture It and Digital Image Pro. The software giant has a full list of the applications in the advisory on its Web site. Windows XP Service Pack 2, which is still being distributed to many customers' computers, is not vulnerable to the flaw.…

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-5378260.html

Identity Theft and Spyware- The New Threat

Identity Theft and Spyware- The New Threat:
"Obviously one of the latest and most dangerous threats to privacy in the digital age lies at the doorstep of spyware. Spyware can be used to surreptitiously gather all types of confidential information and in most cases the user has no idea the information is being taken. This form of “snoopware” lets the spy access everything you do online including usernames, passwords, online shopping purchases and e-mail or chat correspondence. In the hands of an identity thief this type of information is a deadly treasure trove.

Many of today’s most popular spyware applications promise the ability to execute via “remote installation”. Remote installation is the ability to put a spyware program on a computer without having physical access to the machine. Obviously this is crossing a thin line into illegal behavior and this type of software should be classified as a Trojan horse. Nevertheless, these programs are sold every day to consumers who want to monitor their kids, employees, or spouse and perhaps to people that have more nefarious purposes in mind. While there are certainly legitimate uses for monitoring software we find it hard to believe there is any legitimate scenario where a parent or employer would need to use remote installation to install a monitoring program. Make no mistake that spyware can certainly be used to illegally obtain your personal information"

http://www.spywareguide.com/articles/identity-theft.html

Spyware Guide Database - Spyware, Malware and Adware

Spyware Guide Database - Spyware, Malware and Adware:
"The Spyware Guide was created to provide an all inclusive and updated resource on spy ware applications, what they do and how they’re used. These resources include: which software applications can detect and defeat spyware, an extensive database of all known spy software and adware applications and contact information as well as other privacy related products."

http://www.spywareguide.com/

Spychecker - download spyware removal and Internet privacy tools

Spychecker - download spyware removal and Internet privacy tools:
"Whether you are concerned about your online privacy or have suspicions that someone may be spying on your PC activities, you'll find a solution here that you can download and try, or even use it for free. All software has been downloaded and tested before it was listed."

The Spychecker Web site contains a database of applications known to have spyware attached. If you are considering installing a questionable application, try searching for the application in the Spy Checker database (powered by Spyware-Guide) to see if it contains spyware. http://www.spywareguide.com/

http://www.spychecker.com/home.html

Weekend Project: How to punch up your portable - CNET reviews

Weekend Project: How to punch up your portable - CNET reviews:
"The 20-year reign of sealed, proprietary laptops is nearly over. Today's mobile PCs are well on their way to becoming almost as upgradable as desktop PCs. You can often swap out everything from the memory to the CPU and, in some cases, even the graphics card--pretty much everything under the keyboard, other than the motherboard.

Not all laptop lines are equally upgrade-friendly, though, and most vendors still resist articles encouraging readers to grab their screwdrivers and muck around inside their laptops. (We're not sure whether they're worried about accidental hardware damage or lost service revenue.) In general, you'll have an easier time working on a second-tier brand, or a whitebook, because the internal components in these models are usually easier to reach and replace. "

http://reviews.cnet.com/4520-10163_7-5506183-1.html?tag=bnav

Om Malik on Broadband: The Voice over IP Insurrection

Om Malik on Broadband: The Voice over IP Insurrection:
"The $3 billion dollar budget at Bell Laboratories did not include a single project addressing the use of data networks to transport voice when VocalTec Communications released InternetPhone in February 1995. As of 2004, every project at the post-divestiture AT&T Labs and Lucent Technologies Bell Labs reflects the reality of voice over Internet Protocol. Every major incumbent carrier, and the largest cable television providers, in the United States has announced a VoIP program. And even as some upstart carriers have used VoIP to lower telephony prices dramatically, even more radical innovators threaten to lower the cost of a phone call to zero—to make it free.

The VoIP insurrection over the last decade marks a milestone in communication history no less dramatic than the arrival of the telephone in 1876. We know data networks and packetized voice will displace the long standing pre-1995 world rooted in Alexander Graham Bell's invention. It remains uncertain whether telecom's incumbent carriers and equipment makers will continue to dominate or even survive as the information technology industry absorbs voice as a simple application of the Internet.

The roots of the VoIP insurrection trace back to four synchronistic events in 1968. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) ruled MCI could compete with AT&T using microwave transport on the Chicago to St. Louis route. The same year, the FCC's Carterfone decision forced AT&T to allow customers to attach non-Western Electric equipment, such as new telephones, and modems, to the telephone network. The Department of Defense's Advanced Research Project Agency issued a contract to Bolt Beranek and Newman for a precursor to the Internet. And in July 1968, Andrew Grove and Gordon Moore founded Intel. Innovation in the communication sector remained the proprietary right of AT&T for most the 20th century, but events in 1968 breached the barriers that kept the telecom and information technology industries apart. For the first two-thirds of the 20th century, AT&T had manned Berlin Wall separating telecommunications and computing, but eventually, these two enormous technology tracks would be unified.

Two entrepreneurs barely out of their teens, Lior Haramaty and Alon Cohen, founded VocalTec Communications in 1993 based on the promise of packet voice technology they observed as members of the Israel Defense Force. Most military command and control used the highly survivable TCP/IP distributed data networks since the 1980's. The challenge of transporting voice over the networks arose as an imperative to support certain very sensitive voice commands like "drop the bomb", but the idea of commercializing packet voice did not occur to anyone until the arrival of Lior and Alon. How could slicing voice into 50 millisecond packets improve the telephone business? The tradition bound telephone industry types or "bellheads" spent their time before 1995 improving the Public Switch Telephone Network (PSTN) not replacing it."

http://www.gigaom.com/2004/09/the_voice_over_i.php

RSS Comes with Bandwidth Price Tag

RSS Comes with Bandwidth Price Tag:
"Popularity comes with price, as Web publishers of XML syndication feeds are learning the hard way.

According to feed publishers, as the use of Really Simple Syndication news feeds grows so too does the bandwidth they consume and the demands they put on Web servers. Some Weblogs and technology Web sites are rethinking the way they publish their RSS feeds as they find that frequent requests from newsreaders, the applications that aggregate feeds, can strain their resources."

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,1648627,00.asp?kc=ewnws092104dtx1k0000599

Overview - Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 98 Threat Mitigation

Overview - Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 98 Threat Mitigation:
"This guide identifies security issues in networks that include computers running the Microsoft® Windows NT® 4.0 and Windows® 98 operating systems, and explains the best hardening strategies that an organization can use until they are able to upgrade these operating systems."

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/security/guidance/threatmi.mspx

Open Source Security: Still a Myth

Open Source Security: Still a Myth:
“by John Viega

Does the open source process guarantee better security than proprietary development methods do? Not necessarily, warns John Viega. There are several security challenges facing open source software that many developers have so far failed to recognize.”

“In the real world, it's rare that someone reviewing code for security will perform a thorough audit. Line-by-line review is often not feasible, simply because the human mind can't retain a detailed understanding of a large code base. Generally, people have tools to support them. Those tools are a starting point for manual inspection, which focuses on the findings of the tool and looks to see whether there's actually anything to the problem.

"Real" analysis tools are just starting to hit the market. The tools people use tend to be simple ones that don't do sophisticated analysis--grep-like tools such as RATS and flawfinder. A few commercial companies offer "web scanners" that look for common vulnerabilities in an application using a fuzz-like approach (you pick the inputs you think might exercise a common problem, give it a go, and see what happens). The problem with black-box testing for security is that most programs are complex and have states that an automated crawler isn't likely to find. Security problems are often buried in complex systems. Finding them with such an approach would require heavy user interaction to put the system into a large number of different states.

With both the grep-like tools and the black-box testing tools, you will almost always have a large number of false positives to sift through. Most potential auditors throw up their hands in frustration pretty quickly. Those who don't will usually focus on only a few of the reported issues. Even research tools such as BOON tend to have incredibly high false-positive rates.”

The Myth of Open Source Security , http://www.developer.com/tech/article.php/626641

Why Open Source Software/Free Software? Look at the Numbers! , http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html

http://www.onlamp.com/pub/a/security/2004/09/16/open_source_security_myths.html

Download details: Application Compatibility Guide for Windows XP SP 2

Download details: Application Compatibility Guide for Windows XP SP 2:
"Windows® XP SP2 introduces new security technologies to better enable Windows XP computers to withstand viruses, worms and other kinds of attacks. This guide will assist IT Professionals to test and mitigate application compatibility issues arising from these more stringent security technologies."

Microsoft® Windows® XP Service Pack 2 (SP2) introduces a set of security technologies that improve the ability of Windows XP systems to withstand malicious attacks, and provides the IT administrator with system wide security configuration capabilities.

SP2 is more secure by default, and thus automatically provides Windows XP systems with improved protection. However, because system security becomes more restrictive upon initial installation, SP2 may also expose application compatibility issues. It is important that an investigation into possible application compatibility issues takes place prior to full deployment.

This guidance discusses the security technologies, an application testing process, incompatibility symptoms, mitigation techniques, and deployment scenarios. It makes no assumption about the size or complexity of the network, and is as relevant to peer-to-peer environments as it is to Active Directory environments.

File Name:	AppCompat-XPSP2.msi
Download Size:	2956 KB
Date Published:	8/25/2004
Version:	1.0

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?familyid=9300becf-2dee-4772-add9-ad0eaf89c4a7&displaylang=en

Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition Beta

Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition Beta:
"Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition is a lightweight, easy-to-use and easy-to-learn development tool focused exclusively on Web development. Inside, you will find everything you need to begin building exciting, dynamic Web applications with ASP.NET 2.0. "

Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition provides everything you need to begin building Web applications with ASP.NET 2.0. It provides:

• Visual designers that make creating Web applications easy via an easy-to-use drag-and-drop interface
• Powerful code editor with rich functionality such as IntelliSense that makes writing code and HTML faster
• Quickly create data-driven Web applications using the built-in data controls and integrated access to Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Express
• Support for multiple languages, including Visual Basic, C#, and J#
• Get started using the built-in, fully functional starter kits like the Personal Web Starter Kit

Simple management

Create your applications in Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition, and then easily deploy using the built-in Copy Web tool that streamlines the process. Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition includes support for creating and consuming Web services, validating applications across multiple browsers, and easily running and debugging your code using the built-in test Web server, without having to have access to IIS.

Personal Web Starter Kit
Inside Visual Web Developer 2005 Express Edition is the Personal Web Starter Kit , a fully functional sample application that will help you get up and running quickly. This Starter Kit provides all the basic functionality you need to build your own personal Web site, including a balanced and customizable look and feel, a Web-based administration system, rich photo gallery, membership, role management, and more.
http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/express/vwd/starterkit/default.aspx

http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/express/vwd/default.aspx